Massaging balls & forking: what I did in the name of peanut butter cookies

Making cookies can be a pain in the rear end, especially if the dough is hard to work with. These peanut butter cookies were particularly trying because the dough turned out like wet sand: too dry to hold together. Based on user complaints that the cookies were turning out too thin, I modified the recipe by adding 1/2 cup of peanut butter and 1/2 cup of flour. The consensus among commenters was that this was the right proportion. But it probably could’ve used another egg, too.

I sprinkled this batch with Kosher salt instead of forking the tops.

As a result, I had to massage each ball, kneading them like Play-Doh until the dough was the right consistency. Then on my first tray, I used a fork to make the traditional cross-hatch pattern you see on peanut butter cookies. But this process caused some of the cookies to begin breaking apart again. Patience running thin, I decided to forgo the forking, instead sprinkling a bit of Kosher salt on top before putting the remaining cookies in the oven. Fortunately, these turned out tasty (crunchy on the outside, soft in the middle) and the salt adds a nice touch, used sparingly.

The recipe, including the modifications below, made almost 4 dozen and takes a much more patient baker than me.

Modifications:

• Additional 1/2 cup peanut butter, totaling 1.5 cups or about 1 jar
• Additional 1/2 cup flour
• Creamy peanut butter, since that’s what I had handy
• Pinch of Kosher salt sprinkled on top before putting into the oven
• Baking time was 10 minutes per baking sheet of 9 cookies

Earl Grey shortbread. If I can, you can too!

This recipe, which was featured recently on Gojee, made me wonder (1) why I don’t drink Earl Grey more often, and (2) why I’ve never made shortbread before. It’s frickin’ easy (and I say this as someone who’s had many a baking disaster), especially when you consider how difficult some cookies doughs can be to work with. Shortbread is basically just flour, butter, and sugar. It doesn’t have eggs, so it doesn’t get sticky. You don’t need to flour your counter to prevent the dough from sticking when you roll it–awesome.

I used 7 decaf Bigelow teabags for the 2 tablespoons the recipe calls for (not a fantastic brand of tea, but cheap!). You can’t buy the fancy whole-leaf teas for this because you need it finely ground.

My modifications to the recipe: I used 1 stick of regular unsalted butter, and 1 stick of higher-fat European butter, just because I had the latter lying around. The recipe made 2 cookie trays’ worth. So halfway through the baking, I switched the baking sheets to the other rack to ensure even baking. I baked mine for at least 5 minutes more than the recommended 12 minutes. Just make sure to monitor them after the 10-minute mark. The shortbread is done when the edges are browned. Straight out of the oven, they’re soft, but will harden after cooling.

We’ve been eating these with ice cream for that butter-cream 1-2 punch. Mmmmm.

Chocolate meets cardamom

Lately, I’ve had cardamom on the brain. It all started with this Naked Beet recipe from Gojee.com. Then, like a sign from above, I uncovered a long-lost bag of cardamom that same week at the bottom of a kitchen basket. I won’t speculate on how old it is—it was unopened with no visible expiration date. That’s good enough for me (if this makes you never want to come to dinner at my house, I totally understand).

Ever had chai? Then you’ve probably tasted cardamom before. The pods are boiled with cinnamon, peppercorns, fennel seeds, and other spices to make that aromatic brew. Cardamom is also commonly used in Indian sweets. It’s definitely got a kick to it: like milder peppercorns with a hint of cinnamon.

One fascinating thing about cardamom is that the seeds naturally neutralize your breath. Gum manufacturers have taken note—it’s shown up in Wrigley’s Eclipse and toothpaste. Chewing on the seed is the best way to experience the flavor full-on, like in these Persian candies.

As the Naked Beet recipe noted, once the seed is ground up, the powder quickly loses its potency. But I had trouble finding cardamom pods that didn’t cost $15 for a small bottle. I also couldn’t find cacao nibs. So I settled for this double chocolate-chip cookie recipe and my recently unearthed bag of ground cardamom.

 Recipe additions/modifications:

1)      1 individual serving packet of Starbucks VIA ground coffee

2)      1 tablespoon ground cardamom

3)      Substitution: I used a Plugra-type cultured, higher-fat butter (totally optional)

Note: do not use cheap cocoa powder. It’s the difference between your baked goods tasting chocolate-y vs. chocolate-ish. When I swapped my Trader Joe’s cocoa powder for Ghirardelli, it made a huge difference.

These cookies won’t freshen your breath, but they’re pretty good. I probably should’ve dissolved the coffee with a bit of water before adding it to the batter, for better incorporation.

These make good breakfast cookies, if you need a jolt of caffeine to get going in the morning. (Yes, I am advocating eating cookies for breakfast. There is scientific evidence that high-fat foods could kick-start your metabolism. At any rate, it’s better than eating a sugar-and-caffeine-packed cookie late at night.)

Born without the baking gene

One of the first things I ever learned to make was lemon bars, off a recipe clipped from Seventeen magazine. I grew up in a house where my mom used the oven to store pots and pans–so my lemon bars were the rare foray into baking.

A few weeks ago, I decided it was time to revisit those lemon-bar-making days. I finally settled on this recipe from Smitten Kitchen (a modification of the Barefoot Contessa’s, which includes Paula Deen quantities of sugar). What I didn’t realize—until I began laying down the crust dough—was that I was using too large a pan.

What to do, what do to? Most reasonable people would’ve transferred the dough to a smaller baking pan. In a mad panic, I tried building a foil “dam” to prevent the lemon filling from flowing out of the crust that covered 80% of the pan. Here’s what happened:

The resulting lemon bars (to the left of the foil dam; the ones to the right were crustless) were anorexically thin. They tasted ok, but I ended up dumping most of them because keeping them around felt like lemon juice on a wound.

Some people weren’t born to bake, yet we do anyway. Maybe one day I’ll have the patience to follow directions to a T. Until then, expect a few monumental baking failures every year.

As a big fan of ginger, I’ve been on a quest for the perfect gingerbread recipe for years. Most gingerbreads are a wimpy, dead-fish-handshake version of the actual root–like getting ginger ale when what you really want is ginger beer. I’ve tried recipes from the Barefoot Contessa, Smitten Kitchen, and Splendora (my favorite being the Splendora ginger cake because it was the spiciest), but never found my ideal.

This recipe—with modifications—comes pretty close. What I added:

1) 1 extra teaspoon of ground ginger

2) 2 tablespoons of freshly grated ginger

3) For the ginger tea, a packet of these ginger tea crystals (ginger + honey) from the Asian supermarket worked well.

Using Granny Smith apples added a nice moistness and tang. Though delicious overall, this gingerbread didn’t leave my throat tingling. Next time, I’ll be merciless with the ginger.

Barefoot Contessa’s blueberry crumb cake

Last weekend, I found myself with 2 sticks of butter that needed a home—urgently, because they’d just expired. At first I searched for chocolate cake recipes. Most of them looked too rich and involved though, such as multi-layer frosted cakes or lava cakes that need to be eaten immediately.

Then I stumbled across this blueberry-lemon crumb cake from the Barefoot Contessa. She seldom steers me wrong. Her recipes are relatively straightforward, don’t require a whole pantry’s worth of ingredients, and turn out tasty recipe after recipe.

Easier than it looks.

The tricky thing was finding fresh blueberries in the middle of winter. I thought about using the frozen ones I had on hand, but they’re relatively small in comparison. Luckily, they had fresh ones on sale at Safeway.

If you like your cake a bit more tart, I suggest adding more lemon zest and berries than the recipe specifies. Also, sifting through the comments section of the recipe should give you some helpful hints on the adjustments other people are making.

Here’s how I adjusted the original:

1)      zest from 2 lemons

2)      1 tsp lemon extract (don’t bother buying it if you don’t have any handy)

3)      nearly doubled the number of blueberries

4)      didn’t use all of the crumb topping the recipe calls for, only about 2/3

5)      I used a glass baking pan. It took about 50 minutes to bake. Many people commented that it took them a lot longer, though. (Glass retains heat better than metal—which seems somewhat counterintuitive).

The crumb turned out perfectly browned. The cake, fluffy and tart. As some commenters noted, it’s more of a breakfast cake than a dessert, an accompaniment for your morning coffee.

Making a pie from scratch: a virgin’s tale

A few weeks before Thanksgiving, I came across this fascinating pie crust recipe in The Washington Post. The secret ingredient to a perfect crust, according to the pastry-chef author, is a high-fat butter (82-83% “European style” butter; most butters are around 80%), enough salt, and vodka.

Why vodka? Because the high alcohol content (typically 40%/80 proof) helps the dough get the moisture it needs—yet the alcohol evaporates off leaving no flavor, just tender crust. This intel was corroborated by this Smitten Kitchen post. I was sold on the vodka crust idea. And on making an apple pie for the first time the night before Thanksgiving.

No Lucky Charms were baked into this pie.

Foolish, foolish me. Below, a debrief of what I learned, how I did it, and whether I would do it again.

FYI, I only made 1 pie and ingredient-wise, followed the Cooks Illustrated crust recipe from Smitten Kitchen to a T. I did, however, follow the Post recipe for the filling, pie decorations, and time/temp guidelines on baking the bottom crust.

Epiphany #1: The butter you need might be in the “gourmet” cheese case, not the dairy section where you usually find butter and milk.

There’s a liquor-lottery store across from my office, which had plenty of cheap vodka options. Easy enough. Onto securing the high-fat butter. The Post recipe recommended the Plugra brand, a Euro-style butter that’s made in the U.S.

After having no luck scouring/calling a number of Whole Foods, Giants, and Harris Teeters, I made a  last-ditch attempt by going to Whole Foods again, where an employee enlightened me: European-style butters are in the gourmet cheese case where they sell the olives, not with the “domestic” butters over by the milk. Ohhhhhhh. (Other Whole Foods employees I’d talked to over the phone didn’t realize this, either.)

I cut the butter into finer chunks than this, but got exhausted before it became the "grains of sand" texture most recipes call for. The crust still came out fine.

Well, it was Thanksgiving Eve, so of course they were sold out of the unsalted Plugra. Overhearing my conversation with the helpful Whole Foods guy, a customer at the cheese case told me to get the President butter instead. “Trust me, it’s the same,” she said. I protested: “Let me just check and make sure it’s the—” She cut me off. “Trust me, I know what I’m talking about.” As I obediently put the President into my cart, I was hoping that she’d follow that up with “I’m a pastry chef,” but apparently she just makes a lot of pies. According to her, the secret is vinegar and lard. Seems like everyone’s got their own formula.

Epiphany #2: A blender isn’t a substitute for a food processor.

So I trotted home with my overpriced Eurobutter, intent on making a pie Agent Dale Cooper (and in-laws) would approve of. The first step was cutting the butter into tiny pieces. Maybe my butter wasn’t cold enough, but it wouldn’t cleanly cut into pea-sized bits. I did the best I could, then stuck the pieces back in the fridge to cool down again. (You need very cold butter for a flaky crust.)

The next step is incorporating the butter into the dry ingredients for your dough. I don’t own a food processor, but I figured the blender has a “pulse” button on it—same thing right?

Sometimes we have to learn our lessons the hard way. My Jack LaLanne blender did little else but turn the butter back into an amorphous wad, which was stubbornly unwilling to mix with the flour. I end up taking the whole mess out, then incorporating the butter into the flour mixture with 2 butter knives. If you don’t have a pastry cutter, you know why this activity counts as cardio.

Thanks, Alton, for the Ziploc idea.

Epiphany #3: Alton Brown knows things.

Food Network was showing nothing but Thanksgiving specials the week prior. I happened to catch the episode where Alton Brown makes a pie. One tip stuck with me: when you refrigerate the dough disks, put them in large Ziploc bags. Once they’re done resting in the fridge, cut the Ziploc open so it doubles in size and provides a decently sized surface to roll out your dough on. This mitigates the post-pie cleanup. What Alton didn’t say is that you’ll need someone to hold down the Ziploc so it doesn’t move while you roll out the dough.

Epiphany #4: Glass doesn’t conduct heat as well as metal.

I used a deep-dish pie pan made of Pyrex. I’m pretty sure that’s why my baking times were a lot longer than the Post recipe specified. If you’re watching your crust bake, don’t panic when you see pools of butter. Somehow those fatty pools get incorporated into the crust once it’s done baking. You want to get the crusts light brown.

Who cares if it looks perfect--no one's gonna see this part, anyway.

Epiphany #5: Your bottom crust can be as ugly as this.

The edges don’t have to be perfectly fluted or anything, because all that is gonna get covered up once you put the filling in and attach the top crust. However, if the crust cracked while baking that might not be good, since your filling is going to seep in. So be sure to weigh it down as it bakes. Note: I patched that hole at 12 o’clock with some top crust dough.

5 hours later (that includes all prep, refrigeration, baking, and cooling time), I had a passable, if slightly wonky looking pie. My relatives thought it tasted pretty good, though you can never tell if they’re just saying that out of politeness. Mr. X-sXe, who usually levels with me when it comes to my cooking, said the crust tasted like a croissant. I took that as a compliment.

The final spread of Thanksgiving pies. Clockwise from top: my homemade pie, Whole Foods pumpkin pie, and a peach-blueberry pie from the Amish market.

 Pros of baking your own pie

• It’ll likely taste better than store-bought.
• You can customize it with cookie-cutter shapes on top.
• Everyone who eats it will know how much  frustration love is baked right in.

 Cons

• If this is your first time out, say goodbye to 5 hours of your life (of course, a lot of that is downtime where you’re a slave to the timer).
• It’ll probably look somewhat lopsided.
• You’re not saving any money if you go with the Eurobutter. (Last I checked, Plugra was $4.99 at Giant for 8 oz. You’ll need about 1.5 of those for a typical top-and-bottom crust pie, unless you combine it with lard or shortening.
• If you’re me, your kitchen will look like an explosion at the flour factory.

So the big question: would I do it again? Maybe when this experience becomes a distant memory. In the meantime, I’ll leave the pie-making to Ms. Pie.

A test run of Pioneer Woman’s lemon-blueberry pancakes

Maybe a couple times a year, I’ll get a mad craving for pancakes. But it doesn’t strike often, because pancakes are like matzoh balls: eat too many, soon it feels like you’re packing a musket. [Aside: I usually go for the blueberry pancakes from Silver Diner. They’re good without being overly heavy.]

A food stylist once told me the secret to making pancakes look good in ads: dark corn syrup, which is gooey-er so it doesn't soak into the pancakes as quickly. (That's maple syrup pictured here.)

When I saw Pioneer Woman’s recipe for lemon-blueberry pancakes in People magazine (the Steve Jobs issue), I thought I’d give it a go. For one, I wanted to see if she of the wildly popular blog—now a Food Network show—knows what she’s doing in the kitchen.

Two, looking at the ingredients, these aren’t your run-of-the-mill starch bricks. The recipe calls for cake flour, which is lighter than all-purpose. The lemon juice doesn’t just add flavor, it creates a “buttermilk” for fluffier pancakes. Brilliant, because I hate buying buttermilk. I seldom end up using the whole container, and freezing it turns it into smeg. (Another fluffy-pancake secret is egg whites, like at Clinton St. Bakery. But do you really want to spend your Saturday morning separating eggs and whipping them?) I also liked that the recipe uses almost exactly 1 can of evaporated milk. Unlike the fresh kind, it lasts for eons.

Don't over-stir the batter or your pancakes could get tough.

Verdict: Worth adding to your recipe files. The brightness of the lemon, along with bursts of blueberries, make you feel like you’re eating a food-pyramid-approved version of the classic. Also, there’s just a few tablespoons of sugar in the batter to balance the lemon juice. So you’re in control as far as tweaking the sweetness later with your maple syrup.

Recipe notes:

• Don’t buy cake flour: I substituted pastry flour for cake flour, because that’s what I had in the pantry. If you only have all-purpose flour, you can simulate cake flour by cutting it with corn starch.

• Don’t overmix: The batter doesn’t have to be perfectly smooth. Otherwise, the pancakes could get tough. I mixed the ingredients by hand.

• Fold gently: Be careful to fold in the blueberries gently as a last step, or you’ll get purple batter, along with battered blueberries.

• Use frozen blueberries, if you can’t find fresh: By the time I made these pancakes last weekend, I couldn’t find fresh blueberries at prices I’d actually pay.

• Zest as many lemons as you want: I used the zest of 2 lemons. Might even go with 3 next time.

• Use a nonstick pan in addition to greasing the pan with a pat of butter.

• Go small: Smaller pancakes = easier to flip and eat.

Fiery gingerbread cookies from the Contessa

Can the Barefoot Contessa do no wrong? Funny you should ask. The Make-a-Wish drama this past week made her sound like some heartless wench who can’t make time for a kid with cancer. (She ended up granting his wish to cook with her, claiming she didn’t hear about the request until it was all over the press.)

Turns out her recipes aren’t perfect, either.

While all the other (5+) recipes I’ve tried of hers have been solid (netting consistently delicious results), this one for her ultimate ginger cookies overdoes the ground cloves by a full teaspoon. Err on the side of caution with that stuff, or your cookies will taste the way the artsy kids in high school smelled. (Wish I’d read the user comments BEFORE I baked these). Also, you don’t need the full 6 oz of candied ginger—I used about 4 oz and it’s plenty ginger-y.

Having said that, it’s still worth trying this recipe. I typically don’t enjoy chomping down on chunks of ginger in baked goods. However, baby candied ginger (Ginger People makes a good one) has a more tender texture and none of the icky fibrousness you get from normal candied ginger.

Once cooled, these have a great crunchy-on-the-outside, chewy-on-the-inside texture. Another plus is that they don’t seem a unhealthy as your typical cookie, either (no butter).

Barefoot Contessa, time will tell whether you can redeem your reputation as a kid-with-cancer-hater. In the meantime, all it would take to redeem this recipe is a quick edit to your clove measurement.

Blueberry crumb bars

Somewhere in the world, it’s not winter and the streets aren’t piled high with dirty snow spotted with dog pee (grumble grumble). Those warmer places must be enjoying a bountiful crop of blueberries, because they’ve been on sale lately, inspiring me to try this Smitten Kitchen recipe.

The “bar” part of the recipe is butter and egg integrated into flour, baking power, lemon zest, and sugar. You break the (very cold) butter into bits with butter knives, a fork, or a pastry cutter. I consider this process cardio, because you have to go at it for about 10 minutes before the mixture gets to a sand-like consistency. To avoid the manual labor, you can probably also cut the butter into tiny cubes, then pulse them in a blender with the other ingredients.

Next time I’d add at least another cup of blueberries and more sugar to the filling. You’re not supposed to mess with baking recipes, but this is too much bun around too little burger. And based on my limited experience with Smitten Kitchen recipes, they’re conservative with the sugar.